As Hanabusa teams up with an unlikely ally, Fred Hemings, to gut environmental law in order to "bring back the Superferry", it appears that the Superferry will be quite happy doing military contracting.
From the "Armchair Admiral" comes this:
"The Navy will also lease four joint high speed vessels next year, instead of two, until DoD takes delivery of its own ships in 2011, Gates said. The Navy leases high-speed catamarans, such as the Swift, now on a humanitarian deployment in the Caribbean, but has ordered its own purpose-built JHSVs from the Austal shipyard in Mobile, Ala."
Gee, I wonder where the DoD will find 2 spare high speed vessels to lease?
From Alabama come this news:
Gates also said Monday he wants to charter two additional Joint High Speed Vessels, which are used for transporting troops and equipment.
Gates' recommendations "affirm the Navy's position regarding both the LCS and JHSV programs," said Joe Rella, Austal's president and chief operating officer. "Austal, the city, and the state will all benefit from the continuance and growth associated with this plan."...
...Austal in November was awarded a potential $1.6 billion contract to build up to 10 of the Joint High Speed Vessels, but the first is not scheduled for delivery until 2011. That could mean a new mission for two commercial ferries, both built at Austal USA, that are out of work after Hawaii Superferry Inc. canceled its inter-island service last month.Are our Legislators in denial or are they calculatedly playing to their public?
Industry analyst Tim Colton said the military is a natural fit for the ferries, now adorned with colorful swimming manta rays. "Any day now, they'll be painted gray," Colton said.
Fred Hemmings is a known anti-environmentalist - which is ironic since he made his fortune as a surfer. Hanabusa is scrambling to do anything to court voters for her upcoming state-wide candidacy. Unfortunately she is showing herself to be fairly unsophisticated in understanding the laws on the books and willing to throw away longterm protections for a little short term publicity.
I believe Hanabusa radically underestimates how much she is angering the neighbor islands. We certainly aren't looking to elect another politician who blows in whatever direction corporate PR is pushing.
2 comments:
Here, here, Karen!
Hanabusa looked awefully tired in that TV interview on this yesterday. She's incoherently pondering changing decades old law while on sleep deprivation.
I can just see the minority of Hanabusa, Hemmings, and Slom trying to convince other Legislators to slip in a few sentences amendment to some unrelated omnibus type bill in Conference Committee without any testimony or hearings on the amendment.
These H'busa, Hemmer, and Slum don't appear to have good judgement of when to stop.
Hemmings used the derogatory ad-hominem phrase "environmental extremists" in the TV interview yesterday. Those are the same people who persevered in court in agreement with the Supreme Court. So is he saying the Supreme Court Justices are "environmental extremists" too?
Who is really the "extremist" there, the "special privilege extremist" who wants to change the law no matter what to benefit a few companies to the detriment of the environment and vast majority of people, or the people who want to maintain the sustainability and attraction of Hawaii's finite land and water resources?
Aloha, Brad
So now a person who asks ALL corporations to follow the law is an "extremist"?
What is a person who uses their power to aid a corporation to break the law - not once, not twice but now THREE times?
A. A lawbreaker in the pockets of special interests
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